Why make war when you can make music?

Julian Lloyd Webber

12:01AM BST 21 Jul 2005

Politicians of all persuasions should take note of the work of Daniel Barenboim, writes Julian Lloyd Webber

Opposition can have the unlikeliest beginnings. At the tail-end of the '60s London was the undisputed classical music capital of the world. At its centre lay a close-knit clan of Jewish musicians - cheekily nicknamed the "Kosher Nostra" - whose figurehead was the New York-based violinist, Isaac Stern.

Pianist Daniel Barenboim was leader of a pack which included violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman and grew to embrace cellist Jacqueline du Pré when she and Barenboim fell in love.

In order to marry him, du Pré converted to Judaism and the couple were wed in Jerusalem in June 1967 at the height of that particular Middle Eastern conflict.

In the days before their marriage, Barenboim and du Pré were risking their lives playing concerts to Israeli troops on the front line "with the tanks thundering past", as du Pré later recalled.

At the age of 10, the Argentine-born Barenboim had moved with his parents from Buenos Aires to live in Tel Aviv. When, in his twenties, international fame beckoned, he adopted London as his base while retaining a house in Israel and remaining an Israeli citizen.

With such bona-fide Israeli credentials, you would hardly have expected Barenboim to become one of its government's most conspicuous critics. Yet, like Menuhin before him, Barenboim's questing mind ensures that his own considered opinions transcend mere political correctness.

His averred musical hero remains the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler who - tainted by his "association" with the Nazis - provoked a mass boycott by Jewish musicians (Menuhin aside) when his name was touted to take over the helm of the Chicago Symphony.

Over the past few years, Barenboim's critiques of the Israeli government have been coruscating: "Israel is in the grip of a ghetto mentality. We have a powerful army. We have the atomic bomb. But the psychology of what comes out of Israel has the tone of the Warsaw Ghetto."

To inevitable accusations that he has turned against his country, he retorts: "I don't think I'm anti-Israeli. I think Sharon is anti-Israeli because it's in the interest of Israel to understand the problems of the other side."

And that is exactly what Barenboim has been working so hard to do. In 1999 he formed, against all odds, an orchestra made up by an equal number of young Arab and Israeli musicians. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (WED for short - and it's a fitting acronym for what Barenboim has achieved) was the brainchild of Barenboim and his friend, the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. Their idea was to demonstrate that, through music, it is possible for people from warring factions to co-exist peacefully.

After six years of hard work, it is proving an overwhelming success, and that fact alone should convince politicians of the importance of music in education. The Orchestra's debut CD of Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Sibelius is released next week by Warner Classics and, in August, the orchestra plays the Proms (August 15) and Edinburgh Festival (August 16) before giving a ground-breaking performance in Ramallah, Palestine, on August 21.

At the heart of Barenboim's mission is his belief that "music is an art that touches the depth of human existence, an art of sounds that crosses all borders." Politicians of all persuasions please take note.

One politician who did know the value of music was Edward Heath.

While he was prime minister, he famously conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Elgar's overture Cockaigne, which prompted the LSO's principal conductor, André Previn, to say that he didn't mind the prime minister conducting his orchestra provided Previn was allowed to run the country for a few hours. Those were the days.

As Britain plunders its coffers for the untold millions needed to host the Olympics, would it be too much to ask that we find a bit of petty cash and build the concert hall of international standard that London so desperately needs?